At the bar

The Orchid Room is a collaborative writing project. Anyone can participate. Just a leave a comment like talking to the bartender or one of the performers. If you would like a night on stage you can audition anywhere.
This week the Orchid Room is proud to announce all new management.
And we are serving food prepared by
Wilbur Cox Jn. (Wil, to his mates.)
The wine is supplied by the wonderful folk at
The Grateful Palate.

Who

“There are worse things…”, on that we can agree.
For instance, there are worse things than visiting the municipal zoo only to find all the animals asleep…
But then what is a person your age doing at the zoo? You may as well ask Don Quixote what he’s doing fighting windmills. Ask me what my interest is in sleeping animals and I’ll smile, but will not remove my gaze from some caged bundle of fur, a tail, and amazing lungs – which snores…

And I’ll say…
“How did you manage to break into the zoo at night-time?”
You make two assumptions here – that it is closed, which means one cannot enter. Also, I dislike your tone – why assume I broke in?
I had a camera; I listened to a symphony, but then preferred the sound of air. Which you will presume makes no sound, and it will be a poor soul like you, Amy, who wakes me from my daydreams of night.

As I read the paper on New World Street, my head and feet in foreign climes, I decided that there are worse things than downing one’s sorrows in…

We know this better than Starbucks. And I know everything better than the man dressed as Santa Claus. Except here, he’s called Saint Nicholas, and I miss my local library. “Świat”, or “World”, presumably as in “World News”, was a word in the paper that I could recognise from the airport.

Confusing. I was freeing the penguins from the faux-Antarctic swimming pool, catching the fish that leapt for freedom in my hands. There I was in a daydream, dripping past the bars of the cage to see an old friend

and this is how –

my entire body reduced to tears, my hands recognisable only as puddles. For this I had to cry, and cry out so intensely. There are worse things.

When in the cage, I offered the lion a greeting he would not hear. He slept so deeply, and grand exhalations from his nostrils disturbed my puddle. I checked the time of the moon, and consulted my watch – a clock face that rose with a bubble to the surface.

Kneeling down beside the lion, I felt human but not solid, because that irritates me. In the dark, I felt for the lion’s bones, and in a state of liquidity, I notice my own – my muscles floating as if in a cold stew, the occasional human bone snapping with each movement. With every broken bone, I shed a tear, but it is painless. I find the lion’s mane, stroke it and, with the effortlessness of water, loose my clothes.